essential
by colorful swirls
Summary: That kiss breaks open the box, and she is free, free, free. - SiriusMarlene, for Emma.


**disclaimer**: I do not own Harry Potter.

**dedicated to**: Emma (AStitchedUpHeart) because she is completely amazing! And she likes odd pairings like this. I hope you enjoy this, Emma! :3

**written for**: If You Dare, Pairing Diversity Bootcamp, All Canon Bootcamp, Hugs & Happiness - Emma, Pairing and Prompt Challenge (SiriusMarlene, essential), Camp Potter: Paintball.

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Marlene McKinnon has always been a bit on the strange side.

Sirius Black has always had an attraction to the _different_ ones.

.

She lives in a box and she can't get out. There's a lock on the door and her father swallowed the key the day he hit her for the first time.

Hogwarts is hope in the form of magic and she meets people there, people that are friends. But even her friends can't help her out of the box. It's a steel box, made of nightmares and crushed hopes and failures and fear, and everyone knows that fear is impenetrable.

.

In her third year she meets Sirius Black, who can often be found with James Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and occasionally Lily Evans.

Remus is nice, James is arrogant, Peter is nervous, Lily is conflicted, but Sirius is harder to pin down. He has a million definitions; which is right?

.

Marlene sees the world in a different light. Unlike most human beings, she looks for good instead of bad, and finds bad instead of good.

She looks for a mother and finds a grave. She looks for a father and finds a madman. She looks for herself and she finds nothing. _Nothing_.

If she is nothing, how is she standing? If she is nothing, how does she breathe?

.

Sirius Black first takes an interest in Marlene in their sixth year, when everyone is in the Common Room after a Gryffindor Quidditch win. Marlene is sitting calmly on a couch, thinking about unimportant things, and suddenly Lily Evans plops down beside her, fuming.

"Hello," the fiery-haired witch says through gritted teeth. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." Marlene runs a hand through her soft brown hair lightly. "Why are you angry?" Her voice is innocent; her eyes are big and round; her body frame is small but the aura she creates is large. She looks a child but she is a million years old.

"Potter," Lily says simply, and that is answer enough. There is silence for awhile, before Sirius pops up from behind the couch, crying, "Hi, Red - oh, who's your friend?" He looks at her eagerly and appraisingly but mostly curiously.

"This is Marlene. Marlene, this is Sirius." Lily rolls her eyes, as if saying, He's not worth the time. But Sirius looks worth the time. He is handsome, _quite_ handsome, and a good enough person, from what Marlene has heard.

"Hello, Sirius," Marlene says, looking Sirius in his dark eyes, and if they have a beginning, that is it.

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After meeting, Sirius is instantly pulled to Marlene, and she doesn't have any objections to make, not surprisingly.

The two of them are an unlikely pair; the popular boy and the loony girl, but they work.

They take walks around Hogwarts, they sneak out after hours, they sit by the lake. She tells him all about her mother, and how every year for eight years, on November 19th, her mother would make a yellow cake with chocolate icing and blue sprinkles. She tells him how her mother had a beautiful voice; it floated and soared around the notes, and Marlene's favorite song for her mother to sing was _Happy Birthday_. She tells him how her father used to buy her pretty dresses, how her father used to _feel_ different - he used to feel lived-in, but now he just feels empty.

She tells him how her father used to smell like peppermint.

That was before the alcohol.

He tells her how his family hates him, because he's a Gryffindor and he doesn't believe in their prejudiced ways. He tells her how his brother wants to be a Death Eater, how Voldemort, deep down, scares him. He tells her how he almost killed Severus Snape, how he doesn't want to be a murderur but how he fears one day he'll have to be.

Soon, having these talks (and having the other) is essential.

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To him, Marlene is a breath of fresh air, someone with whom he does not have to pretend for. Not that he has to pretend for James or Remus or Peter - but everything is just so easy, so simple, so clear whenever he's with her. And, she's wonderful for answering questions.

"What do you think dying feels like?" He asks it because he's been thinking about the war, and because he knows that she will be honest.

"As easy as falling asleep," she answers wistfully, staring out across the land, and in the times to come, when Sirius is afraid, he will open up that picture in his mind and remind himself that, really, the worst that can happen is falling asleep.

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"What do you think of me, Marlene?" Sirius lays with his hands crossed under his head, basking in the sun while she sits against a tree, in the shade.

She tilts her head thoughtfully. "You - you're different, Sirius. Some people make me happy, and some make me sad, but you don't make me feel either."

He raises his eyebrows. "I don't?"

"No," she says, looking at him with those eyes that have seen so little but know so much. "You make me feel alive."

Maybe his reaction should have been different, considering the implications of this statement, but remember that this is Sirius Black. "Wait a minute - feeling alive doesn't make you happy?"

"On good days," Marlene answers simply, taking his fascination and fixing it on her, once again.

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One day, he kisses her. It's sweet and quick and meaningful and it feels like a million reasons to live on her tongue. He smells like lemon and he feels so warm and, when they come up for air, his lips make a sound as he parts them - not a normal parting lip sound, a Sirius one, and it sounds like every bird opening its beak to sing.

But he doesn't sing. Instead, he says, "I love you," and it sounds like water falling down a waterfall so fast it turns white, it sounds like her mother's voice singing _Happy Birthday_, a halo above her head, it sounds like _him_ and it sounds like perfection.

That kiss breaks open the box, and she is free, free, _free_. She is more than nothing, she is _everything_.

.

They go on to live. The war is raging on outside their door, and as Gryffindors, they answer the call.

It becomes too much one day.

She dies. It's simple - she fights, she loses, she dies.

It's as quick and easy as falling asleep, just like she knew it would be.

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Years later, a man will sit in a chair, newly released from Azkaban. The man will look at old photographs, he will laugh at his idiot friends and smile at the ones that are still living and try not to let tears drop on the ones that aren't. He will remember that day, so long ago, that another man - a tall man, with a long beard - told him that she was dead. Had been killed.

He will think to himself that after everything he's lost, she is is still the biggest hole in his heart. He will look at a picture of her, look at her eyes, and even though this man is a thousand years old, the sight of her face will make him feel new again.

But _now_, as a man - a tall man, with a long beard - tries to speak to him, the man breaks.

.

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**a/n**: please don't favorite/alert without reviewing! I have absolutely no idea what this is; it's 4 am and when I resurface from my pillow, I'd really like to see some reviews. ;)


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